Dog walkers
I walk the dog to discoverwhere I'm meant to be.
I recognise alonenessin other dog walkers,
the bliss of being pulled alongto the same park, same footpath
where just enough chaos lives.
I think of the old man who used to stop me:I hate this area, I grew up in Geelong West.
The way he waited at the picket fence,his discontent at 93.
Bare carport, blinds drawnhis liver brown brick veneer
caught in the creep of McMansions.How did we wash up here?
Bins out, porch light as our blankey,bats circle and squeal round a fig tree.
Somebody flattens it down South Valley Road.Wild, resolute, drawn to what seems
the way bats hunt by sonar,dog walkers sniff by routine.
Sign of peace
When my uncle was dyinghe suddenly wanted to shake hands.My father drove three hoursalong chipped country roads to see him.All my uncle wanted to dowas grunt and shake his hand.Most of his life, he had lived alonehad never really had the need to shake hands,unlike my father who has had six sonsthrusting their right hand at him for seventy years.
Reclusive, unmarried, exiled to Murtoa,the uncle who lived as an unanswered questionuntil I saw his photo on the funeral service pamphlet.He might have been happy with the cigarettes,the friend down to take care of the belongingsafter the funeral. Perhaps other people too,reach a point when they are ready to shake hands,to touch another person's skinlike the sign of peace before Communion,when people turn to shake handswith strangers, those nearest, brothers.
The last talker after Mass
He belts his trousers with baling twine,parks a mud-splattered ute outside the Bankwhen there's a shift in percentage rates.
The straggly lines of his arguments follow cow paths,every useless huar wants to run this country.He laughs as much as he spits.
Veins in his cheeks, grey hair testamentto frosty mornings, a bull bowling his wife over in the yard.Their days in mud at the foot of a mountain.
The smartest man in the districttalking his way through a church crowd.Farmers fell away when they saw him coming.
My father had developed a bad habit of listening.My mother sat in the car putting up with us kids.We were always the last to leave after Mass.
Brendan Ryan lives in Geelong. His most recent collection of poems is Travelling Through the Family. He teaches at a secondary college in Geelong.